I'm Keeping Her
by libug22
Summary: Emily is on spring break with the girls and find something very interesting washed up on the beach during her morning run. Mermaid AU.


**Alright guys, this one is a long time coming. Thanks to Lindsey Shaw's Project Mermaid pictures and Saii79's art of those a few people were wanting a Mermaid AU and I said I'd write it. So it's finally here, and the next chapter is pretty much ready as well, but I'm going to get all my other stories updated first, plus all the new ones I have. Because I also have an Emily!Mermaid AU because when I think of one of them being a mermaid I picture it being Emily. So I wrote both! I hope you guys like it! And if you have any ideas or something you want to see in either mermaid au just let me know :)**

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Emily Fields wakes up every morning at 5 am to go for a run before swim practice.

So it was only natural for her to wake up at the same time for a run even though she's on vacation in Baja for spring break.

It's her second day here, her first day was spent lounging by the pool with her three best friends just having a relaxing day. They had plans for sightseeing today but Emily's internal alarm clock wouldn't leave her be.

So now she's running down the beach away from the resort. She's about 5 miles away now, there's giant reddish brown rocks rising from the water. She runs under an arch shaped one and looks up to admire the beauty of it. Her foot catches on something and she finds herself flat on her face.

"What the hell?" she murmurs into the ground before she pushes herself up and wipes off the sand stuck to her face. "Oh my God." she exclaims once she sits up and sees a lump of a person behind her wrapped in a fishing net.

Emily crawls over as fast as she can. She realizes the girl doesn't have a shirt on so she takes off her sweatshirt and lays it over the unconscious girl then shakes her a little to try and wake her up, "Hey! Are you ok?" she yells.

She takes a second to scan the girl for injuries and gasps when her eyes land on what appear to be scales all over the girls legs, and her eyes trail farther.

"Or not legs. Fin...that's a fin...she has a tail..." she reaches out cautiously and places her hand on the girls hip, "Woah."

Emily takes her hand off, squeezes her eyes shut and opens them again. When it still seems like this girl has a tail she puts her hand back down on the scales.

"Ok...Ok...this is fine. But if I'm not going crazy, and this girl has a tail, then she probably need water right?" she wonders aloud, thinking the scales felt quite dry.

Emily then stumbles over to where she dropped her water bottle when she fell. She grabs it and looks from the bottle to the girl on the ground.

"I have no idea what to do with this..." she decides to untangle the strange girl from the net first in case she's hurt and it's hurting her more.

She works for a few minutes and finally pulls the net away. She sighs and sits back trying to figure out what to do next.

As she's sitting and staring at the scales, and just as she notices how beautiful they are, changing color in the sun from pink to green to blue, the scales start to fade.

"What the..."

She watches in astonishment as the tail disappears and 2 legs are left in it's place.

Then Emily hears a moan and her head snaps to the girls face. The brunette's eyes are fluttering open and her eyebrows are furrowed together.

"Hey! Are you ok?! Can you hear me?!" Emily leans over the girls face.

The girl clears her throat, "Of course I can hear you, you're yelling."

The corner of Emily's mouth quirks up, "Well I just found you unconscious on the beach tangled in a fishing net, so I was a little concerned for your safety."

"The beach!?" the girl yells. She sits up quickly almost smacking her head into Emily's. The sweatshirt the raven haired girl covered her with falling from her chest.

She looks around her and then down to her newly formed legs.

"What is happening?!" she exclaims in a panic. "How did I get here? How'd I get those? Who are you?!" she asks all in one breath turning towards Emily.

Emily picks her sweatshirt up and covers the brunette again, "Well I can only answer the last question. I'm Emily, I was running and found you. I don't know what happened to you, but..." she pauses wondering if she should ask what she wants to ask before deciding to just go for it, "did you know you had a tail before?"

The brunette grabs the sweatshirt and covers her top half realizing that's what Emily wanted, "I...uh...no?" she responds unconvincingly. But then notices the look on the other girls face she sighs, "Yea, I know, I'm a mermaid."

"No way. I mean I guess, with the fin, and the scales, and the net, that makes sense. But it still doesn't make sense!" Emily exclaims exasperated. "Mermaids aren't real."

The girl laughs, "Well as one, I can tell you that we most definitely are real. We're just usually a lot more careful about who sees us." she cringes, "My dad is gonna be so mad..."

The two girls sit in silence for a few seconds.

"But...how'd I get legs?" The brunette asks.

"Um...it just changed. I watched it. You felt really dry so I was gonna get you water but then I figure I should get the net off first, so I did, and then...poof...legs." Emily pointed to the girls legs but kept her eyes on her face.

"Huh. I've never heard of this happening before."

"So are you gonna tell me you name? I kinda saved your life and everything." Emily asks smiling sweetly.

"You gave me legs!"

"I did not! They just showed up!" Emily replied.

The girl laughed and sighed out "I don't know what's going on...I'm Paige though."

"Nice to meet you...I think."

Paige laughed softly, "Yea, hi." she waved awkwardly, "I'm the worst mermaid of all time apparently."

"Don't worry about it, I mean, you're amazing...um... _this_ is amazing," Emily gestured to Paige's legs, "but I won't tell anybody if you're worried about that."

Paige let out another sigh and relaxed, but only slightly. This was still strange, and she was worried about what it all meant. She groaned and fell back onto the sand.

"You ok?" Emily asked carefully putting a hand the other girls arm to try and comfort her in some way.

Paige opened one eye, squinting against the sun, and finally looked at the stranger who found her. She studied the other girl. Noticed her beautiful tan skin that looked so soft she almost reached out to feel. She trailed her eyes up her body and when she got to the girl face, first she noticed the crinkle between her eyebrows. Then when she made eye contact he saw genuine concern and her heart swelled.

"Paige?"

"Y-yea I'm ok. I just don't know what I"m supposed to do now. I have no way of telling my father what happened, or where I am." Paige started rambling.

"You can come with me." Emily said without thinking.

"Really?"

Emily paused for a couple seconds to think. _Eh, why not?_ "Of course! I"m staying at a resort down the beach a ways." She thought again, "Only problem is I'm only here for a week..."

"I'd be very grateful for anything. I don't have anywhere else to go." Paige's stomache growled, "And I guess I'm hungry?" she laughed lightly.

"It's settled then. You can come stay with me and I'll help you try and figure out why this happened, ok?" Emily asked.

"Alright. Thank you so much."

"Let's get going so we can find you some breakfast." Emily said standing up and reaching her hand out for Paige.

Paige's eyes locked on Emily's legs. She'd never seen legs before, only heard stories about land people, but she felt like Emily's legs were better than most.

"Come on Paige."

The brunettes eyes snapped up to Emily's and she held the sweatshirt tighter to her chest with one hand and reached out her other to take Emily's.

Emily pulled Paige up only to end up on her back, in the sand, with the other girl on top of her.

"Sorry." Paige mumbled into Emily' chest where she landed. She picked her head up and looked at the other girl with a sheepish smile, "I've never used legs before."

Emily laughed, partially because of what Paige said, and partially because she was caught off guard by the tingles that were running through her body being cause by the brunettes bare legs touching her own bare legs.

Paige lifted herself up and tried to put her new feet underneath her.

"Hold on, here." Emily gestured for Paige to sit before grabbing the forgotten sweatshirt and pulling it over Paige's head, helping her get her arms though the holes.

"Wow, this is warm." Paige whispered in awe.

"Um..." Emily glanced down for a split second before averting her eyes. She stood up and pulled off her running shorts, glad she put boy shorts on this morning. _They can easily pass as a bikini bottom right?_ She thinks as she hands the shorts to Paige. "Put one leg through each hole and pull them up like I had them on."

"Ok..." Paige face wrinkled in concentration as she stared at the object in her hand.

Emily was looking everywhere but Paige.

Paige started mumbling incoherently to herself as she stuffed each leg into the shorts. Her new legs felt weak when she moved them. But she finally managed to pull them up.

"Got it!" she exclaimed with pride.

 _Thank God._ Emily thought with a silent sigh of relief. She looked back to the other girl and really looked at her for the first time now that she was clothed and she didn't have to avert her eyes.

She froze when her eyes found big deep brown eyes. _Woah._ Her breath caught in her through, and she let out a strangled laugh. She cleared her throat to try to cover it up and asked, "Ready to try again?"

"I guess so."

Emily walked a couple steps closer to the brunette, studying her. Her long brown hair was still a little wet. Her skin was pale. _Makes sense. I'd even be pale if I lived under water._ Her eyes traveled back to the girls face, her furrowed brow, and soft looking lips. _She's gorgeous, that's for sure._

Once Emily realized she'd been staring she shook herself out of it and held out both hands for Paige to take. "Slow this time, yea?"

Paige nodded and grabbed the other girls hands.

Emily held Paige's weight as she put one foot at a time flat on the ground.

"Ready?" Paige asked.

Emily nodded.

Paige held tight to Emily's hands and slowly stood up. She watched her legs until they straightened out, then lifted her head to look at Emily.

The beaming smile Emily saw when the other girl looked at her made her melt inside.

"I'm doing it!" Paige said excitedly.

Emily smiled just as big, "You are! Ready to try walking?"

A look of determination fell over Paige's face and she nodded once.

Emily just found the look adorable.

"Ok look at my feet." Emily moved her legs and walked in place. "See? Except you move you foot forward." She moved one foot forward a step and then moved it back.

Paige nodded again to say she was ready and lifted a foot. She moved it forward and placed it back down in front of Emily's foot.

Emily smiled and nodded in encouragement. "Other foot now, farther than that one."

"Ok..." Paige said and took another step. She looked up from her feet and smiled a crooked smile that made Emily's heart flutter.

Emily tried to ignore the feeling, passing it off as happiness for the other girl.

She held Paige's hand while the girl took a few more steps, getting steadier with each one.

"I'm gonna let go now." Emily says softly.

Concentration fell over Paige's face as she nods.

Emily let go and took a few steps backward away from the brunette.

Paige looks down at her feet, then to Emily, then back to her feet. She watches as she slowly picked a foot up and moved it forward.

When she puts it down she looks up at the raven haired girl and sees the most sincere smile on her face, and it immediately fills her with confidence. This beautiful stranger already believed in her.

Paige takes another two steps, keeping her eyes connected with Emily's. Their smiled widen at the same time and Paige takes the last two steps to meet Emily.

Except the toes of one foot caught the heel of the other and Paige crashed into Emily who let out a shriek of surprise.

"I am so sorry!" Paige exclaims. "Might get some getting used to."

Emily bursts out laughing. After a few seconds, when she saw a hint of hurt on the other girls face, she took a deep breath, "I'm sorry! But, you have to admit, it was kinda funny."

One corner of Paige's mouth quirked up, then the other, then she was laughing as loud as Emily just had. "Yea you're right." she admitted, "This is crazy. Never in a million years did I think I would have legs. I just wish I new how...and why."

"We'll figure it out. And we have a long walk back to the resort for you to get used to the legs." Emily smirked and hopes the brunette didn't notice the trail her eyes just took raking over them.

Paige noticed but she didn't think anything of it. From the stories she's heard about land people, they frown upon same sex relations. So, there's no way this amazingly beautiful girl would be interested unfortunately.

Emily snakes her arm around Paige's waist making the brunette jump slightly.

Emily pulled back, "Sorry." she mumbled.

Paige laughs nervously, "It's ok, it's fine, go ahead."

Emily puts her arm back and takes some of the other girls weight.

Paige swings her arm over Emily's shoulder, grateful for the help, and the two girls start their long walk down the beach.


End file.
